May Madness & Dance Gifts

It always blows my mind how fast the end of the school year goes.  I had two weekends in a row of competitions (one of which down in the cities), then right into the week before finals and then finals week, meaning an avalanche of grading for me on top of dance practices and teaching.
I'm going to just give you some photos of the highlights, since it's tough to cover 2 weeks without getting dull.

Pink Panther ladies ready to head on and earn a High Gold in Minneapolis!

Hard-Knock Life ladies just before going onstage to earn their first Platinum, which is amaaazing!

My Tonight girls had a blast onstage, were completely together, and had one of their best performances to date!

Scott snuck a little snack in my bag for me during my long weekend... he's kind of my favorite person ever. :)

My duet girls taking home more high score hardwear and another Platinum for their musical theater duet!

Right after I got back from the competition, I switched into hardcore English Teacher mode.  These were the first round of papers I had to grade in a week.

One of my best college friends (and old roommate) Juliet stopped by for coffee at school with me during finals week!!  Great to catch up with her before she heads back to California!

If you haven't guessed yet, I didn't finish my Ivy League Vest before school finished.  I'm a little bummed out, but honestly I just didn't have the time to devote to a large-scale project like that with everything I had going on. Instead, I wore my stylish apple teacher dress to the final, and worked on the U of M socks while my students typed and fretted away!
I also finished some special dancer gifts for a few of my solo/duet ladies!  I'm giving them out this afternoon, so I think it's officially okay to post them on here now.

I used the Tiny Ballerina pattern to make keychains for my Friendship girls of their characters!
It was finicky and a little bit of a pain, but they turned out beautifully, and I think the girls will love them (I certainly do)!  I had to get a little creative to make the hair look correct, and I embroidered suspenders on the "boy" character and tied a tiny tiny bow tie (which I dotted a little Elmer's glue on so it would hold) to make it look as close as possible.  I think they'll be pleased. :)

I also made one for my solo student Taylor, who is a conductor for her dance!  And yes, that is a conductor's baton glued to her hand.  Bam.  No detail left behind.
I plan on using this pattern to make the head of my studio a ballerina keychain for one of her end-of-year gifts, and it's getting easier the more times that I do it.  The tiny nature means I have to really pay attention, but it's a very satisfying project when done.
I also finished the Police Box Handwarmers for one of my senior solo students, and left them in Kim's room to block on the heater so the cats wouldn't get to them.
Well, Kim came home and left her door slightly cracked when she was out in the living room.
You can guess what happened next.

Yep.
The monster never sleeps.
::sigh::
I'm going to tear them back this afternoon and redo a little bit on them.  So much for giving out all of my gifts today...